Does a VPN keep you safe when torrenting? Short answer? It’s not a yes. Not all of the time. There are a few factors that influence whether does a VPN keep you safe when torrenting. Some services are better for it, some are worse. And if you are planning to do torrenting, for whatever reason that you have, there are a few things to know about torrenting and staying safe while doing it.
“You torrent, you illegal.”
One of the slang phrases used to describe torrenting.
Except, torrenting itself is not illegal.
Torrenting is merely a tool for downloading.
What are you downloading though? That’s the big question.
If you are downloading something that you need to pay for in order to access, that’s more than likely illegal. Then torrenting is illegal. Not because you are torrenting but because you are downloading something illegally.
They might also do something about it.
Storytime.
Before Spotify was a big thing, people downloaded music.
I had a CD of an artist I liked. Except, CD’s were useless for listening on your phone.
What did I do? I decided to download a song.
A few weeks later there was a letter in my home about it.
The letter, it stated that the provider does not monitor activities of other people.
If you don’t monitor activities then how do you know?
A VPN?
A VPN is meant to keep you safe when torrenting.
Well, there are a few factors that you need to look at first, not including the given such as IP address change which is a must and comes with all VPN services.
Firstly, a VPN must have strong encryption.
All VPN services come with some sort of encryption, but that’s not enough. You need strong encryption otherwise a VPN won’t keep you safe when torrenting. PrivateVPN offers 2048-bit encryption with AES-256. This is the highest level of encryption on the market. Yet, that’s not enough by itself.
Even more of an important feature is the IPv6 Leak Protection. If you are wondering does a VPN keep you safe when torrenting, it does. Until it stops working. And sometimes a VPN will stop working. Perhaps you have a bad computer, or you are temporarily disconnected from the internet.
IPv6 Leak Protection disconnects you from the internet the second your VPN is not working. That’s vital for staying safe. You cannot be protected almost always when torrenting. You need to be always protected. One second is enough to get a letter from an internet provider.
Does a VPN keep you safe when torrenting with just these? No.
There’s a big problem with VPN companies every time when the government put pressure. Plenty of VPN providers, especially the free ones, claim not to keep logs which essentially make what you do trackable back to you, but do. HideMyAss is an example of this.
If logs are kept, a VPN won’t keep you safe when torrenting.
We can’t. We are a Swedish company. And we break the Swedish law if we do. Even if we were evil and wanted to lie by saying we don’t while we do, we can’t, and that keeps you safe.
If you have leak protection along with no logs, and of course encryption and an IP address change, you will be safe when torrenting. Fail on one of these or decide to turn off a VPN after finishing downloading something while still having your torrent client on, and you might be in trouble.
How severe will that trouble be? That depends on your internet provider.
How do you get started with PrivateVPN that offers all of this? By creating an account with us. The Buy button on top is what you need. Click on it. Set up your account via our 30-second registration. Download our client. Connect. And stay say safe when torrenting.
Since 2009, we served over 44,000 users and provided 100% anonymity without a single data breach.
Written by Michael Smolski.
PrivateVPN does not believe in piracy. It does, however, believe that privacy should be a basic right on the internet. And that’s what it delivers.